FEMINIST NON-PROFIT LEGAL FIRM EXPANDS OPERATION

Affordable Justice, an online Alternative Business Structure nonprofit law firm that specialises in working through a feminist framework with women escaping from domestic abuse situations, is seeking to significantly scale up its business model across the UK.

Set up in 2016 in direct response to the cuts in legal aid implemented by LASPO in 2013, the company has since supported over 1100 women in accessing legal support and representation. Founders Sue Sedgwick, pictured above, and Lisa Hilder predicted the extent to which women would be personally impacted by the cuts and felt it crucial to find a way of reducing the costs charged to these women.

“At £300-350 per hour, plus VAT, even professional women who are on a higher than average salary are going to struggle to meet the costs of a commercial solicitor,” commented Lisa Hilder. “Many women will have been controlled financially by their partners, having access to even their own incomes restricted, and any spending scrutinised. Even basic paperwork such as passports and driving licenses are often controlled, which means that many women are unable to even start legal proceedings as they cannot produce any form of identity.”

The Affordable Justice business model operates as a non-profit charity, stripping away the profit element that is usually charged by commercial solicitors. This means that the firm can charge less than a third of what women would normally be expected to pay.

Of equal importance, Affordable Justice - which was established by women for women - approaches its working practice through a feminist framework. What this means is that the woman is placed at the centre of all legal decision making.

“What we were witnessing on a daily basis was the prevalence of women who are victims of abuse being re-traumatised due to the way in which the legal process works through the Family Court,” added solicitor Sue Sedgwick. “Basically, women felt as though they were not being heard, nor believed. We were being contacted by women who had nearly abandoned any hope of finding a just and legal route out of their untenable situations due to the structure of the family law system that allows their former partners to perpetuate that coercive and abusive control in the courts”. Increasingly the company, which also operates as a charity, is dealing with this weaponization of the courts system by the perpetrator. For example, a clients’ former partner may opt not to take on their own legal representation, which means that as the only official advocates, Affordable Justice ends up putting in more hours (at the woman’s expense) to make sure that applications for court hearings are pushed forward. Once in court, the former partner also has the right to personally crossexamine our client.

“We have coached numerous women through this terrifying situation,” continued Sue Sedgwick. “These are women who have already undergone years of torment and abuse. Unfortunately, the system allows this to happen, re-traumatising women on an emotional level and impacting them yet more on a financial level”.

The company’s experiences demonstrate how domestic abuse, in its many different forms, and legal childcare arrangements, are both prohibitively expensive and woefully weighted against the woman. Consequently the company is on a mission to advocate on behalf of women who have been disproportionately impacted since the erosion of legal aid in 2013. The company’s work started in Yorkshire and the Humber, but it now works across England and Wales.

To this end the company has refined its business model to ensure it can scale quickly across England and Wales. Driven by the constraints of covid, Affordable Justice has created an online model of working that allows its women family law solicitors to structure their working schedule as much as possible to be flexible to their own family lives, significantly improving their own work-life balance.

“We are in the process of building a UK wide network of women solicitors, and are always keen to hear from family law specialists who are seeking a different way of working,” said Lisa Hilder. “Importantly, while we are more affordable than high street firms, we do not compromise on the quality of our professionalism, and offer competitive salaries”.

Affordable Justice is interested to hear from family law specialists across England and Wales, including barristers and other associated professions.